Stillwater is a residential community in northern

Westchester County, New York Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population ...

. It was conceived by

Ralph Borsodi Ralph Borsodi (December, 1888 – October 27, 1977) was an American agrarian theorist and practical experimenter interested in ways of living useful to the modern family desiring greater self-reliance (especially so during the Great Depression) ...

as a

community land trust A community land trust (CLT) is a nonprofit corporation that holds land on behalf of a place-based community, while serving as the long-term steward for affordable housing, community gardens, civic buildings, commercial spaces and other community ...

, one of his experiments in the

back-to-the-land movement A back-to-the-land movement is any of various agrarian movements across different historical periods. The common thread is a call for people to take up smallholding and to grow food from the land with an emphasis on a greater degree of self-suffic ...

, but the community ceased to be a land trust soon after it was founded. The property owners are members of a homeowner association, the Stillwater Association, Inc., which is responsible for Still Lake, a small private lake within the community, suitable for swimming and small unpowered boats, and skating in winter.

Geography

Stillwater shares the ZIP Code and school district of the town of Ossining, New York, and depends on the Ossining Volunteer Ambulance Corps for emergency ambulance services, but it is physically located in the west end of the neighboring township of New Castle, New York (41°12'3"N 73°48'36"W, 170 m above sea level); it shares the volunteer fire service of the New Castle hamlet of Millwood and is policed by the New Castle police department. Still Lake, also called Stillwater Lake, has an area of about 24 acres. The

Taconic State Parkway The Taconic State Parkway (often called the Taconic or the TSP and known administratively as New York State Route 987G or NY 987G) is a parkway between Kensico Dam and Chatham, the longest in the U.S. state of New York. It follows ...

runs near the eastern shore of the lake, and when the parkway was rebuilt in the 1960's, New York State took possession of the land between the parkway and the lake.

History

In the late nineteenth century the New York Aqueduct Commission built the

New Croton Aqueduct The New Croton Aqueduct is an aqueduct in the New York City water supply system in Westchester County, New York carrying the water of the Croton Watershed. Built roughly parallel to the Old Croton Aqueduct it originally augmented, the new sys ...

, a brick-lined tunnel several hundred feet underground, to supply water from the Croton reservoir to New York City. The aqueduct is shown on a 1914 atlas of Westchester County, passing under property owned by Wilbur D. Titlar. Shaft No. 2 of the aqueduct is near Tate's swamp on the north of the Titlar property. This property of 165 acres was deeded from Mr Titlar in June 1915 to George W. Still, who in 1929 built a dam on the property to create Still Lake . In the early 1930's Ralph Borsodi set up the Independence Foundation, Inc. with Chauncey Stillman and others to acquire land for homesteading communities. A detailed "Indenture for the Possession of Land" describing the rights and duties of homesteaders was prepared, and in 1935 a community called Bayard Lane was started, near

Suffern, New York Suffern is a village that was incorporated in 1796 in the town of Ramapo in Rockland County, New York. Suffern is located 31 miles northwest of Manhattan. As of the 2010 census, Suffern's population was 10,723. on part of the Still property. Several of the first houses built in Stillwater, sometimes called the "stone houses", have exterior walls of concrete faced with natural stone as proposed by the architect

Ernest Flagg Ernest Flagg (February 6, 1857 – April 10, 1947) was an American architect in the Beaux-Arts style. He was also an advocate for urban reform and architecture's social responsibility. Early life and education Flagg was born in Brooklyn, New ...

to enable construction by unskilled labor. Such Flagg System Homes were also built in the Bayard Lane community. Unfortunately the Independence Foundation board thought that the Stillwater project was unreasonably large, and encouraged Borsodi to abandon it. When the Foundation dropped the Stillwater project, it ceased to be a community land trust, but the Independence Foundation still owned the land. A revised "Master Contract" was prepared, to replace the "Indenture for the Possession of Land", and Homesteaders who had already built on their plots had their Indentures replaced by mortgages. Homesteaders who had not yet built on their land purchased the land by regular monthly payments. The Stillwater Association remained, to care for the common property, mainly the lake and its borders.

Notable early residents (1940s)

The founding subscribers in 1940 to the Sillwater Association, Inc. were Albert W. Merrick Sr., Allbert W. Merrick Jr., Pierre Bezy, Leon Svirsky and Donn Marvin. Most early residents were attracted by Ralph Borsodi's visions of

social reform A reform movement or reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary move ...

, including the

, and were on the socialist/cooperative/mutualism spectrum. These included Bea Fetz, daughter of George and Emma Schumm, colleagues of the individualist anarchist Benjamin R.Tucker Margaret Goldsmith, granddaughter of

John Humphrey Noyes John Humphrey Noyes (September 3, 1811 – April 13, 1886) was an American preacher, radical religious philosopher, and utopian socialist. He founded the Putney, Oneida and Wallingford Communities, and is credited with coining the term "com ...

, founder of the

Oneida Community The Oneida Community was a perfectionist religious communal society founded by John Humphrey Noyes and his followers in 1848 near Oneida, New York. The community believed that Jesus had already returned in AD 70, making it possible for the ...

Helen and Tom Maley. Helen was a progressive educator of young children. She founded a neighborhood nursery school in the 1940s, and later the Yorktown Community Nursery School. Her husband Tom was a photographer and artist, who founded the Field Gallery on Martha's Vineyard. Albert W. Merrick Sr., ran as Socialist candidate in the 1932 election for the New York Assembly - Schenectady 2, and received about 4% of the vote. In his professional career, he developed Vitallium, which is still used for artificial joint replacements. Iris Merrick (wife of Albert W. Merrick Jr.), ballerina and choreographer, trained with

Michel Fokine Michael Fokine, ''Mikhail Mikhaylovich Fokin'', group=lower-alpha ( – 22 August 1942) was a groundbreaking Imperial Russian choreographer and dancer. Career Early years Fokine was born in Saint Petersburg to a prosperous merchant an ...

, founded in 1949 and led for 30 years the Westchester Ballet Company. Leon Svirsky, journalist,

Nieman Fellowship The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University awards multiple types of fellowships. Nieman Fellowships for journalists A Nieman Fellowship is an award given to journalists by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University ...

at Harvard 1946, managing editor of

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

1948-1958 Oriole Tucker-Riché, daughter of Benjamin R.Tucker

Notable neighbors

At the north end of Still Lake, near the dam but not part of Stillwater Homesteads, were cottages rented from Mrs Still during summers from about 1945 to 1955 by two New York-based musicians and their families,

Nadia Reisenberg Nadia Reisenberg Sherman (14 July 1904 – 10 June 1983) was an American pianist of Lithuanian birth. Biography Nadia Reisenberg was born in Vilnius to a Jewish family. Her parents were Aaron and Rachel Reisenberg., adapted from Dr. Anne K. Gray' ...

and her sister

Clara Rockmore Clara Reisenberg Rockmore (9 March 1911 – 10 May 1998) was a Lithuanian classical violin prodigy and a virtuoso performer of the theremin, an electronic musical instrument. She was the sister of pianist Nadia Reisenberg. Life and career Ea ...

, née Reisenberg, who performed under her married name. Nadia Reisenberg was a pianist. Her son Robert Sherman is a music critic and broadcaster, who maintained his interests and property ownership in Stillwater and the neighborhood since his summers there as a young man. Clara Rockmore trained as a violinist but abandoned the instrument due to an arthritic problem, and after meeting

Leon Theremin Leon Theremin (born Lev Sergeyevich Termen rus, Лев Сергеевич Термéн, p=ˈlʲef sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ tɨrˈmʲen; – 3 November 1993) was a Russian and Soviet inventor, most famous for his invention of the theremin, one o ...

she became proficient on the electronic instrument he had invented, the theremin. She also went on tour with her close family friend the singer

Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional American football, football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplish ...

, and offered him sanctuary in her cottage at Still Lake after the Peekskill riots in 1949 (Peekskill is only about 10 miles from Stillwater). In 1927

George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ' ...

and Ira Gershwin leased Chumleigh Farm estate, where most of the songs for ''Strike Up the Band'' (musical) were written. The estate, just to the west of Stillwater, also became a social center for visits from the Gershwins' New York friends. A mile or so west of Stillwater was the home of actors

Jose Ferrer Jose is the English transliteration of the Hebrew and Aramaic name ''Yose'', which is etymologically linked to ''Yosef'' or Joseph. The name was popular during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods. *Jose ben Abin *Jose ben Akabya * Jose the Galilea ...

and

Uta Hagen Uta Thyra Hagen (12 June 1919 – 14 January 2004) was a German-American actress and theatre practitioner. She originated the role of Martha in the 1962 Broadway premiere of ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' by Edward Albee, who called her "a ...

. The nearby Westchester Playhouse in Mt. Kisco, one of the best summer-stock theaters in the New York area during 1932-1940, helped launch the careers of these actors.

References

{{coord missing, Hudson Valley Land trusts in New York (state) Aqueducts in New York (state) Westchester County, New York New Castle, New York Communities by political ideology Land trusts Intentional communities in the United States Intentional communities in New York (state) Lakes of Westchester County, New York New Deal subsistence homestead communities